Geneva1897 January Otto Hermann Kahn joins Kuhn, Loeb and Compoany, his father-in-law's firm. Jan 20 The remains of Civil War officer Ely Parker are buried in Red Jacket's plot in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery. Feb 11 Philo McGriffin, leader of the defeated Chinese navy at Yalu River, shoots himself to death, in New York City. Feb 12 The New York Morning Journal claims that male Spanish police boarded the U. S. Steamship Olivette and strip-searched three Cuban women on board. It's a lie. Apr 16 Metropolitan Opera radio announcer Milton John Cross is born in New York City. Jun 15 Fire destroys the main immigration building at Ellis Island. All records are lost. Sep 27 Maude Adams opens in James M. Barrie's The Little Minister, at New York's Empire Theatre. Sep 28 Hugh Morton (Charles M. S. McClellan) and Gustave Kerker's The Belle of New York opens in New York City at the Casino Theatre. Nov 25 Jazz composer-pianist-vocalist William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff "Willie the Lio"" Smith is born in Goshen. Dec 10 The New York Morning Journal announces that their correspondent Karl Decker has rescued the Cuban Evangelina Cisernos from a Spanish jail in Havana. City Construction begins on Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz' building for the Society of Civil Engineers on West 57th Street. ** The Yale Club, for university alumni, is founded. ** City Court presiding judge Robert A. Van Wyck, running on the Democratic ticket, defeats Republican Benjamin Tracey and Citizens Union candidate Seth Low, to become mayor, serving 1898-1901. ** Explorer Robert Peary discovers a 38-ton meteor in Greenland, brings it back to the Museum of Natural History. He also brings six eskimos, including the hunter Qisuk and his young son Minik. State Temperance reformer Frances Willard returns to Churchville, her birthplace, to visit an aunt. ** The R. E. Chapin Manufacturing Works, founded in Oakfield to manufacture oil cans, moves to Batavia. ** Fishkill orders the demolition of Orson Fowler's octagonal house, calling the rundown structure a public danger. ** A deepening of the Erie Canal in Pittsford, into the following year, exposes black shale and interbedded dolomite, which will be named Pittsford Shale in 1903. ** Le Roy salt wells are producing 1,000 barrels a day. ** The widowed Lydia Avery Coonley marries Rochester professor Henry A. Ward. ** Pearl B. Wait of Le Roy sells he formula for Jell-O to Orator Woodward. Rochester A Rochester Herald search of police files covering the city's downtown "Bowery", clears the area's record on many lurid journalistic "scoops" of previous years. ** North Avenue becomes Portland Avenue. ** Grain merchant J. Starkweather buys a house on Lafayette Place formerly occupied by deputy sheriff Matthew Warren. ** The Law and Order Society generates grand jury indictments and bench warrants are issued to baseball players for violating local laws against playing on Sunday. 1898 Jan 1 New York City takes its present form with five boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island. February Willa Cather writes her final book review column for Pittsburgh's Home Monthly. She spends a week in New York, writing play reviews for the Sun, attending the Metropolitan Opera and lunching with actress Helena Modjeska. ** Qisuk, one of the Greenland Eskimo brought back to New York City by explorer Robert Peary, dies, leaving his son Minik an orphan. After a mock funeral Qisuk is dissected and his bones are stored in the Museum of Natural History. Feb 7 A new version of Lottie Blair Parker's Way Down East opens at New York City's Manhattan Theatre. Feb 9 Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst prints a private letter in his New York Tribune from Senor de Lome, the Spanish minister to the U. S., criticizing president William McKinley as "feebleminded". Feb 18 Temperance leader Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard dies in New York City. Feb 21 Frances Willard's funeral train stops in her home town of Churchville for a day before continuing on to Evanston, Illinois, for her burial. Mar 11 Jazz trombonist Irving Mifford "Miff" Mole is born in Roosevelt, Long Island. May 16 New York City's Metropolitan Opera debuts its first production of Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme. May 21 Businessman Armand Hammer is born in New York City. May 25 Publisher, author and television panelist Bennett Cerf is born in New York City. ** Boxer Gene Tunney is born in New York City. Jul 6 Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott is born in New York City. Jul 14 Realist painter Alexander Brook is born in Brooklyn. Aug 1 The U. S. War Department, warned that over 3,000 of its troops in Cuba are suffering from yellow fever, orders all healthy personnel off the island, to be returned to Long Island's Montauk Point. Aug 26 Art patron Peggy Guggenheim is born in New York City. Sep 15 The American Social Science Association meets in New York City and forms the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Sep 19 New York State's Cornell School of Forestry is established. Sep 26 Composer George Gershwin is born in Brooklyn, New York. ** Henry Arthur Jones' The Liars opens at New York City's Empire Theatre. Oct 6 Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac opens at New York City's Garden Theater. Oct 10 Hall Caine's The Christian opens at New York City's Knickerbocker Theatre. Nov 8 Theodore Roosevelt is nominated for governor of New York State by the Republican Party. City Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz' headquarters building for the American Society of Civil Engineers is completed. ** The first public high school is opened. ** Boring & Tilton's immigrant processing center on Ellis Island is completed. ** Fidelity Bank owner Louis Silverman brings his son Sime to the city to become an appraiser. Sime will rebel, found the show business weekly Variety. ** Future diplomat Stephen Bonsal reports on the Cuban revolution for The New York Herald. ** The National Arts Club is founded at Gramercy Park, in a mansion once owned by governor Samuel Tilden. State The Brockport Normal School converts a private residence into the Principals' residence. It will one day be Alumni House. ** Steam tugs begin operating out of Dunkirk. ** Bragdon and Hillman's Livingston County Courthouse opens. ** Batavia's former Brisbane Mansion is taken over by the village. It will become City Hall. Albany The city gets its first effective water filtering system. ** Socialite Huibertje Pruyn marries Bostonian Charles Hamlin. Buffalo The School of Pegagogy at the University of Buffalo, having issued only two doctorates, closes after four years of operation. ** Dr. Annie Cheyney (-Spofford) erans her medical degree from the University of Buffalo. Rochester The Academy of Music is gutted by a fire. ** The city's Italian population begins a concerted attempt to get it's own Catholic Church, an effort the will reach fruition in 1906. 1899 Jan 9 David Belasco's English-language adaptation of Pierre Berton and Charles Simon's Zaza has it's New York City premiere at the Garrick Theatre. Apr 21 Composer Randall Thompson is born in New York City. Jun 13 The Delaware and Hudson Canal is drained and abandoned. Jun 30 Cyclist Charles "Mile-A Minute" Murphy, following a Long Island Railroad train, breaks the 60 mph speed barrier for bicycles. Jul 11 Author-editor E. B. (Elwyn Brooks) White born in Mount Vernon, New York. Jul 17 Film actor-singer-hoofer James Cagney is born in New York City. Jul 20 New York City bootblacks and newsboys go on strike, win higher wages. Jul 29 The first motorcycle race is held, at Manhattan Beach. Sep 11 Construction begins on the Rochester & Sodus Bay Railway Company interurban line. Sep 29 New York honors Admiral Dewey upon his return from the Philippines. A 36-foot-high electric sign reading "Welcome Dewey:" is erected atop the Brooklyn Bridge. City Gangster Abner "Longy" Zwillman is born in Brooklyn. ** Hugo Hoefler's Victor Hugo apartment building at 1878 Second Avenue is completed. ** 17-year-old Charles Ponzi arrives from Italy. ** Virginia journalist James Branch Cabell goes to work for the New York Herald. ** Charles W. Morse's American Ice Company is investigated by New York State anti-trust officials. He moves his operation to Chicago. ** Developer Hamilton M. Weed, anticipating a future subway route, buys land at the corner of 71st Street and Broadway, for $275,000. He will have the Dorilton apartment house built there in 1902. ** New York Central & Hudson River Railroad staff engineer Robert Giles designs the Spuyten Duyvil Improvement, a swing bridge built to carry trains across the Harlem River. ** Black songwriter Gussie Lord Davis dies. State Dr. Annie Cheney of Detroit, Michigan's Women's and Children's Hospital moves to Batavia and begins a practice. ** A syndicate buys up most of the salt wells in the Warsaw area. ** Eight-year old William Averill Harriman accompanies his father, Edward Henry Harriman, on an expedition to Siberia. Buffalo The Worthington Company absorbs the Snow Steam Pump Works and changes its name to Worthington's Snow or the Buffalo Works. Rochester The Rochester Yacht Club captures the Canada Cup from the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. ** The West Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church is completed. 1900 Jan 3 Giuseppe Verdi's Aida opens in New York City. February Doubleday, Page publishes Frank Norris' A Man's Woman. ** August Belmont announces the formation of a Rapid Transit Construction Company, to build a subway in New York City. It will build the IRT. Feb 5 Clyde Fitch's adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's novel Sappho opens at New York's Wallack's Theatre, starring Olga Nethersole. Feb 6 Theodore Roosevelt announces he will not accept a nomination as vice president. Feb 12 Novelist Frank Norris marries Jeanette Black in New York City. Feb 24 Contracts are signed in New York City to begin construction on a subway tunnel. March The route of a Broadway subway is announced. Hamilton M. Weed files plans for an apartment building (the Dorilton) at his Broadway and 71st Street property. Mar 5 The New York City police close Sappho for immorality. Olga Nethersole is arrested. ** David Belasco presents a one-act-play version of John Luther Long's Madame Butterfly at New York's Herald Square Theatre. It runs for 24 performances. Mar 6 Out on bail, Olga Nethersole revives Arthur Wing Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanquery. Mar 24 Ground is broken in front of New York's City Hall for the city's first subway, to connect Manhattan with Brooklyn. Mayor Van Wyck turns the first spadeful of earth. Mar 26 Edward Hugh Sothern stars in an English-version of Gerhardt Hauptmann's The Sunken Bell at New York's Knickerbocker Theatre. April Scribner's publishes Edith Wharton's The Touchstone. Apr 2 New York's Automobile Club announces plans for a transcontinental highway. Apr 3 The Vanderbilt railroad interests take over the Reading, Lehigh and Erie Railroads. ** Olga Nethersole's trial begins. Apr 6 Olga Nethersole's trial ends in acquittal. Sappho reopens and plays for another 86 performances. Apr 7 Hudson River School painter Frederick Church dies. Apr 9 Simultaneous versions of Henryk Sienkiewicz' Quo Vadis? open at Manhattan's New York and Herald Square theaters. Apr 14 Andrew Riker, driving an electric automobile, defeats eight cars using gasoline, to win the first 50-mile auto race, on Long Island. Apr 23 Buffalo Bill and his Rough Riders appear at Madison Square Garden. May Frank Norris, working as a special reader at Doubleday, Page & Co., discovers Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. May 1 Rochester's street railway system inaugurates "all- night" service, running until 12:30 AM on weekdays, 1 AM on Saturdays and midnight on Sundays. May 19 William Randolph Hearst attends a meeting of the National Association of Democratic Clubs in New York City, is elected president of the organization. May 23 The Associated Press news service is founded, in New York City. May 28 An exhibit of the paintings of Frederick Church opens at New York City's Metropolitan Museum. Jun 19 The Republican convention, meeting in Philadelphia, nominates William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Jul 8 Military historian Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall is born in Catskill. August Theodore Dreiser signs a contract with Doubleday, Page for Sister Carrie. Aug 22 The Rochester & Sodus Bay interurban begins servive between Sodus Bay and Glen Haven. Sep 7 Edward Hugh Sothern opens in Hamlet at New York's Garden Theatre. Sep 8 Hurricanes strike Galveston and Houston, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. 6,000 people die in Texas. Victor Herbert will conduct a huge benefit concert in New York's Madison Square Garden for the victims. October Frank Norris moves to a cottage at Roselle, New Jersey, to work on The Octopus. Nov 5 Sappho is revived at Wallack's Theatre and plays another 28 performances. Nov 6 William McKinley is re-elected President of the United States, with Theodore Roosevelt as his Vice-President. Nov 7 Prices soar on the New York Stock Exchange. Nov 8 Dreiser's Sister Carrie is published, with no publicity, due to its realistic portrayal of the underclass. Nov 12 The musical Floradora premieres on Broadway at the Casino Theater. Nov 14 Composer Aaron Copland is born in Brooklyn. Nov 19 New York's New Metropolitan Opera House presents its first opera sung in English - English composer Arthur Goring Thomas' Esmerelda. Nov 20 French actress Sarah Bernhardt arrives in the U. S., gives a press conference in New York City. Dec 5 Munitions tycoon Francis Bannerman buys a Hudson River island. Dec 15 New Yorker Staats-Zeitung publisher Oswald Ottendorfer dies at the age of 74. Dec 17 Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge's Union Station in Albany opens. City The Paderewski Foundation opens. ** The Spuyten Duyvil swing bridge is built, to serve as a railroad bridge linkingthe upper tip of Manhattan with the Bronx. ** The Euclid Hall apartment building on upper Broadway is completed. ** Music publisher J. H. Wehman dies, in debt for $130,000 for copyright infringement. ** The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is founded. ** Composer Charles Ives becomes the organist for Central Presbyterian Church. State Population reaches 7,268,009. Rochester's is 163,000; Syracuse's 108,000; Albany's 94,000; Utica's 56,000. ** Librarian Clara Higgins Smith leads the effort to build the Angelica Free Library. ** Port Gibson ships a record 2,000 pounds of currants, by express wagon, to New York City. ** Itinerant painter Susan Catherine Moore Waters dies. ** The Pickle Boat begins making twice-daily voyages between Old Forge and Inlet, taking supplies to Adirondacks campers. ** Future Sears, Roebuck executive Robert E. Wood graduates from West Point. Batavia The Crickler Bottling Works is founded. ** The approximate date Milo B. Langworthy builds a shed for parking shoppers' horses on State Street. ** Alice Day (Gardner), working as a clerk in her father's law office, enrolls in the School of Law of the University of Buffalo. David Minor Eagles Byte Historical Research Rochester, New York 716 264-0423 http://home.eznet.net/~dminor